Mickey You’re So Fine

Callaway becomes the club’s 21st manager and will the be the first of them to wear No. 36, and only the third to have been a pitcher in his career (George Bamburger and Dallas Green were the others). Like everyone else I was highly impressed with his enthusiasm and demeanor during the “meet-the-press” event and was pleasantly surprised to see the club name a rookie manager. Even though 13 of the 21 were first-timers, I truly thought those days were over.

Did you guys know “Mickey” was actually a remake of a song called “Kitty” by the British cheese-pop band Racey? Check it out!

It appears this morning that Callaway’s bench coach will be Gary DiSarcina, most recently of the Red Sox, who presumably could inherit the No. 10 jersey left behind by Terry Collins. Terry by the way has accepted a job as “assistant to the GM” but I’m worried that his relationship with Fred Wilpon, who seems to love his “grey-haired old baseball men,” will be an obstacle Callaway and his new staff will need to overcome.

Also new to the coaching staff next season will Ruben Amaro Jr., who will coach first base, baserunning and outfielders: He’s switching jobs with Tom Goodwin, who will do the same thing for the Red Sox next year. Amaro wore 20 with the Red Sox last season but is better known around the NL East as “Ruin Tomorrow Junior,” the GM who screwed up the Phillies. The new pitching coach is reportedly Dave Eiland, who spent the last seven seasons as the Kansas City Royals pitching coach, where he wore No. 58.

In the meantime the Mets promoted Pat Roessler (6) to hitting coach; Glenn Sherlock (53) will remain as the third base coach and Ricky Bones (25) will retain his gig as bullpen coach.

In player news, we’ve already seen Tommy Milone (29) declare free agency; Nori Aoki (11) released and five guys dropped from the 40-man roster and outrighted to Las Vegas (Tyler Pill, Phillip Evans, Erik Goeddel, Travis Taijeron and minor leaguer Wuilmer Becerra, surrendering Nos. 56, 72, 62 and 28 respectively. There’s obviously much to come still, I’m hoping the club can bolster the starting rotation with a couple of reliable arms and I’m open to improving the club by trade. We’ll discuss more soon!

3 comments

Roessler is usually referred to not by his name, but as ‘Six.’ I assume this predated his arrival, as it seemed odd that an assistant hitting coach got a single digit number. Have there been any other folks in Mets uniform similarly nicknamed?